Arts Archives

Manon Lescaut: Puccini’s Anna Nicole?

Opera

This season has already seen Manon Lescaut appear in several different operatic guises across the UK, but it was Covent Garden’s new production of Puccini’s version (its first staging of it in three decades) that was the hottest ticket of all. The Latvian soprano Kristine Opolais and the superstar tenor Jonas Kaufmann were tackling the roles of the lovers, Manon and Des Grieux, for the first time. Antonio Pappano, in the repertoire where he most reliably excels, was in the pit. In an introductory talk before the production opened, the conductor tentatively drew a comparison between Puccini’s first major success and Mark-Anthony Turnage’s Anna Nicole, which opens the Royal Opera’s next season.

Deborah Ross

Walking on Sunshine: the feel-ennui musical of the year

Cinema

As far as ‘jukebox films’ go, Mamma Mia! was a riot, Sunshine on Leith was tolerable, just about, while Walking on Sunshine is a step too far and brings the genre to its knees.It’s being billed as ‘the feel-good musical of the year’ although, bereft of a single original idea, ‘the feel-ennui musical of the year’ may be the better fit. Also, ‘I-feel-really-really-bored-and-quite-insulted-and-also-rather-repulsed-and-I-keep-checking-my-watch-in-the-hope-it-will-be-over-soon’ would cover it quite adequately. Set to 1980s hits (‘Holiday’; ‘Don’t You Want Me’; ‘Girls Just Want to Have Fun’, etc.

Giannandrea Poesio

A swan to die for at Sadler’s Wells

Looking for a Game of Thrones substitute? Vikings is the closest you’ll get – but it ain’t close

Television

Did you know that the 8th-century Kingdom of Northumbria was the epicentre of an international exotic reptile trade? I only discovered this myself from watching episode six of Vikings (History Channel, Tuesday) and being introduced to the snake-pit maintained by King Aelle. What particularly impressed me were not just the variety of pythons and boas at the bottom of the pit but also their excellent state of health.

Kate Chisholm

The gardener-soldiers of the First World War

Radio

First, a confession. Even an ardent radio addict can enjoy a fortnight away from the airwaves, disconnected, switched off, unlistening. On return even the programmes that are usually ignored because they’ve become so familiar catch your attention. I grew up with Gardeners’ Question Time as a regular weekly slot on Sunday afternoons, snooze time for my overworked Dad, but stopped listening after the great schism of 1994, when the entire panel abandoned the BBC and moved over to the new Classic FM station because they didn’t like the way the BBC was handing over its production to an independent company. The illusion that the programme was a bit otherworldly, not part of the hard-bitten news and current affairs schedules or the argy-bargy of commerce, was shattered.

Lara Prendergast

Has the rake progressed?

Mark Benton’s Hobson spares us nothing in his journey from rooftop to gutter

Theatre

Nice one, Roy. Across the West End secret toasts are being drunk to the England supremo for his exquisitely crafted belly flop in Brazil. A decent run by our boys in the World Cup has the potential to put a nasty dent in the box-office takings. As a welcome home present the lads deserve free tickets to Hobson’s Choice at the Open Air Theatre. The play is one of those dependable classics that directors don’t entirely trust. Few can resist the temptation to give it a tweak or stick it in a time machine. The storyline has the simplicity and boldness of a fairy tale. Hobson, a despotic widower, forces his three daughters to toil in his shoe shop for no wages. His eldest girl, Maggie, persuades a spineless underling, Willie Mossop, to marry her.

Tessa Lang

Spoken For

25 June 2014

Jack Wakefield

The next head of the National Gallery will be…

Nick Penny announced that he is stepping down as head of the National Gallery. Next door, at the National Portrait Gallery, Sandy Nairne also announced that he is leaving. Could he be after the job at the NG? Nick Penny’s predecessor, Charles Saumarez Smith, came from the NPG but his lack of knowledge about the NG collection is said to have led to an internal curatorial mutiny. Sandy Nairne could also be said to lack the knowledge of the collection necessary to do the job well.

20 June 2014

Camilla Swift

A good cad is easier to find – and much more fun – than a good gentleman

Country Life’s 'Gentleman of the Year' awards were announced last week, and contrary to the bookies’ expectations, David Beckham has finished in second place. The winner, their panel decided, was another David. David Dimbleby, in fact, for being: ‘an anchor in every sense of the world’ and ‘holding the nation steady when the water gets choppy’. But is either of those Davids really worth of the title? Country Life’s judges have, apparently, decided that tattoos are allowed, since in the 19th century ‘it was quite a gentlemanly thing to do’. I’m not sure everyone will agree with their decision, particularly Sarah Vine, who recently compared tattoos to ‘a form of self-harm’.

19 June 2014

Lloyd Evans

Alex Jennings interview: the new Willy Wonka on Roald Dahl’s ‘child killer’

Arts feature

‘Oompa Loompa juice,’ says the actor Alex Jennings when I ask if he takes any supplements to preserve his looks. He’s 57 but could pass for a decade younger. We meet backstage in his Drury Lane suite, which boasts a fridge crammed with pink champagne, where he’s preparing to play the lead role in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. His relaxed demeanour and silky voice create an air of instant geniality that is reinforced by his towering figure. He’s six foot four and as lean as a fast bowler. Though he’s due on stage in 90 minutes, he lounges semi-horizontal in an armchair showing no trace of anxiety. ‘I do get nervous before the first big number. The great thing is, once the music starts, it don’t stop.

Andrew Lambirth

The painter who channelled the forces of gravity

Exhibitions

Tragically, Ian Welsh (1944–2014) did not live to see this exhibition of his latest work. Diagnosed with terminal cancer on the eve of his 70th birthday, he struggled to finish the two large paintings in his last series of works, entitled ‘Gravity’s Rainbow’. He found it increasingly difficult to stand to paint, but he worked, sitting down instead, on a group of six small canvases that have a mysterious linear assurance worthy of the best of late de Kooning. Welsh desperately wanted to see his new work up on the refurbished walls of his local gallery, Hasting Arts Forum, of which he was a passionate supporter, acting as chairman until very recently. But despite his fortitude and remarkable good spirits, he died just three weeks before the exhibition opened.

Fleur Adcock

Eva Remembers Her Two Brothers Called James

Poems

When she thinks (if she does) of the first James it is of a six-year-old who died when she was fourteen, of meningitis. His spirit, like a trespassing sprite, flew into his parents’ marriage bed and lurked there as they comforted each other. A month later, conspiring with the genie of ovulation and the hormone fairies, it implanted itself in a fertilised egg, to be born in July 1890 and loaded with the same eight syllables: James Arthur Dickson Eggington. He didn’t resemble his first avatar or any of his incarnate siblings at Eva’s wedding, this gladsome imp with his long chin.

Deborah Ross

A funny weepie that paints itself into a contrived corner

Cinema

The Fault in Our Stars, which is based on the bestselling young-adult novel by John Green, is about two teenagers with cancer who fall in love and it’s a sort of Love Story for younger people, God help them, although unlike Love Story it’s not set to mislead an entire generation. (In my experience, love means having to say you’re sorry constantly, and at least three times before breakfast.) This is funnier — it’s funny about the Big C; that’s its USP — but it is still a weepie and yes, I did weep, as I’m not a cold-hearted monster (am I not still recovering from Marley & Me?

James Walton

The girl who had sex with dolphins

Television

BBC4’s The Girl Who Talked to Dolphins (Tuesday) began with the overstated-sounding claim that it would be tackling ‘perhaps the most remarkable period in the history of animal science’. In fact, though, the longer the programme went on, the more convincing this claim felt — even if the word ‘period’ should possibly have been replaced with ‘episode’, and ‘remarkable’ with ‘bonkers’. At times, the story seemed almost too neat a microcosm of the 1960s, as well meant if not necessarily practical ideas about transforming life on earth — and beyond — gave way to something much darker. At others, it brought to mind that hippie Californian scientist in The Fast Show.

Lindsay Johns

The song that fought apartheid

Did Turgenev foresee Russia’s Stalinist future?

Theatre

Fans of Chekhov have to endure both feast and famine. Feast because his works are revived everywhere. Famine because he concentrated all his riches in just four great plays that grow stale with repetition. For fresh nourishment we turn to Brian Friel, whose stage adaptations of the short stories go some way to appease our hunger. In 1987, Friel applied his skills to Fathers and Sons, by Turgenev, which is now revived at the Donmar. The magical charm of a Russian estate is superbly conjured by Rob Howell’s set. Slatted timbers and peeling paintwork. Golden shafts of sunlight falling on crimson rugs and scattered wicker baskets.

Damian Thompson

I think I’ve found the new Alfred Brendel

Music

Can you tell how intelligent a musician is by listening to him play? Last year I discovered a recording of Schumann’s Piano Sonata No. 3 in F minor, a sprawling and spidery work that can fall apart even under the nimblest fingers. Not this time. Francesco Piemontesi, a young Swiss–Italian pianist, totally nails it. Believe me, it takes some nailing. In the opening Allegro brillante and the final Prestissimo possibile, Schumann stretches lyrical melodies across madcap scales and arpeggios that dart in every direction. The rhythms are insistently dotted: Schumann at his most obsessive-compulsive. There are lots of crunching gear changes and scampering pianissimo passages that turn to mush if the pianist seeks safety in the sustaining pedal.

Hugo Shirley

Tilting at metronomes: Massenet’s Don Quichotte opens at Grange Park Opera

Opera

To suggest that the ageing Jules Massenet identified himself with the title character of his Don Quichotte is nothing new — and late works such as this by definition encourage biographical interpretations. One of the main liberties of the opera, premièred in 1910 and very loosely based (via a contemporary verse play) on Cervantes, was to bring the character of Dulcinea (here ‘La Belle Dulcinée’) out of the realm of the imagination and to embody her as a distinctly flesh-and-blood mezzo-soprano. That the first singer to perform Dulcinée, Lucy Arbell, was the object of Massenet’s infatuation only emphasises the biographical parallels, all of which give extra layers to a gently wise and touchingly melancholy work.

Matthew Sweeney

Ice Sculpture

17 June 2014

Igor Toronyi-Lalic

The BBC’s music strategy is a shambles

Tony Hall made some terrible music announcements yesterday. They come hot on the heels of some terrible arts announcements he made a few months ago. Among the most lousy is the proposal to set up a music awards ceremony - because we don’t have enough of those. The suggestion is that the ceremony would become a rival to the BRIT Awards, with a focus on younger musicians and better music, which in principle sounds good until you realise it’ll be the BBC deciding the music and the musicians. He also hopes to ‘surprise audiences’ with ‘unexpected performances’. To do that he’s gone and bagged the BBC Concert Orchestra! I know! Exciting, eh, to know that Britain’s least respected orchestra will be involved in this celebration of great music.

Igor Toronyi-Lalic

Marina Abramović is no fraud – or no more so than any religious leader

If art is the new religion, we were always going to end up here. With high priests, acolytes and 'energy'. That’s the set up at the Serpentine Gallery at the moment: us as the potential believers queuing around the block ready to be received, and Marina Abramović as the high priestess armed with nothing (literally nothing) but her presence. It could be Rome, Jerusalem or Gold Base. It could be the 20th, 8th or 1st centuries. We’re in a world of belief – and possibly make-believe. I was Abramovićed last week. Rationalist cynic that I am, I thought I wouldn’t be able to take it. But I did. I felt compelled to, really. It seemed churlish not to at least try to engage in it. To not do so would be to cut off my nose to spite my face.

12 June 2014

Roderick Conway-Morris

Modernism’s dreams – and nightmares – at the Venice Architectural Biennale

Arts feature

An eccentric English aristocrat who constructed a 20-mile network of underground corridors to avoid coming into contact with his fellow humans on his country estate; a Japanese dentist who has amassed an enormous collection of decorative details from buildings spanning a century, retrieved from Tokyo demolition sites; the German inventor of ‘Scalology’, who has spent 60 years studying staircases; and Inuit soapstone carvings of a Cold War early-warning station and of an airport terminal are among the surprises offered by the 14th Venice International Architecture Biennale. The Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas is this year’s artistic director.

Andrew Lambirth

The Royal Academy Summer Exhibition offers up the good, the bad and the ugly – and a sore neck

Exhibitions

One of the great traditions of the RA’s Summer Exhibition has always been that each work submitted was seen in person by the Hanging Committee, passed in front of their keen or bemused gaze by a succession of porters. Of course this method had its drawbacks: judges could miss something in a state of postprandial somnolence induced by the consumption of too much (heavily fortified) beef tea, but at least the paintings, drawings and prints had a chance of being chosen through that all-important direct communication of eye and art. (Sculpture, because of its scale and mass, has always presented its own logistical problems.) This year, for the first time, artists submitted their works digitally for the initial round of judging. Has this made any appreciable difference? Not really.

Lara Prendergast

When Mondrian was off the grid

Exhibitions

I find it easy to forget that Piet Mondrian is a Dutch artist. The linear, gridlocked works he is famed for seem to beat with the energy of the New York metropolis. But it was not always so. His path to abstraction was a precarious one that bumped into a number of styles drifting round during the early 20th century. And, in the beginning, his work was Dutch — pastoral, domestic, earthy. To see this progression, head to Margate (Margate!) where you will find an exhibition of Mondrian’s work at Turner Contemporary, which commemorates the 70th anniversary of his death. The title sounds generic — Mondrian and Colour (artist — tick! Artistic property — tick!) — but in many ways, it’s confusing.

Igor Toronyi-Lalic

Why is the opera world so damn uptight?

God, opera singers are touchy. You dare to analyse how they look, you dare to criticise the enormous subsidies they get, you have the temerity to call someone an opera singer who hasn't been vetted by an opera commissar and they go all Al-Qaeda on you. Yesterday the Today programme had an interview with Russell Watson, a decent, popular singer whose shtick includes shouty renditions of opera arias. The presenter introduced him as an opera singer and the poncey opera world went ballistic. 'He’s not an opera singer!' they bleated, 'He’s just a singer!’ Note that twatty 'just'? No art form that was confidant about what it does would ever feel the need to puff up their chests like this.

John Fuller

Memory

Poems

While in the mirror I’m an aging face More or less the same day after day, In the mind’s darker space There are these handles to enticing doors Of occasional abrupt transition, Doors of entry, doors Of intercommunications Obeying the same laws. So many rooms! Such impatience!

Hugo Shirley

Terry Gilliam turns to eye-watering excess for his staging of Berlioz’s Benvenuto Cellini

Opera

Operas about artists are not rare. However — perhaps for obvious reasons — those artists tend to be musicians, singers, or at least performers, able to persuade and cajole both us in the audience and the other characters on stage through their eloquence. Berlioz, in his first opera, presents the renaissance sculptor Benvenuto Cellini, in an episode loosely adapted from his autobiography. But the final casting and unveiling of his new statue of Perseus, against all the odds, provides a climax that music (let alone stagecraft) seems fundamentally ill equipped to portray.

Lloyd Evans

The Globe’s larf-a-minute Antony and Cleopatra

Theatre

It’s hilarious. It’s also annoying that it’s so hilarious. Jonathan Munby’s earthy and glamorous production of Antony and Cleopatra goes almost too far to please the Globe’s fidgety, giggly crowds. The Egyptian queen is often treated as a female Lear, a trophy role, a lap of honour for a transatlantic facelift as she enters her bus-pass years. But Eve Best is the same age, around 40, as the real thing, and she invests the character with a fine mixture of romanticism, majesty and erotic guile. She also has a strong Home Counties branding. Slender-limbed and deeply tanned, she drifts around her palace in a range of floaty white linen dresses. Her dark-brown hair extensions wouldn’t disgrace a Clairol advert.